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Home » Travel » Our Experiences Riding With A Pull-Behind Motorcycle Trailer: Packing Tips, Ice Cooler Tips, And Enclosed Motorcycle Trailer Tips For A Cross-Country Trip

Our Experiences Riding With A Pull-Behind Motorcycle Trailer: Packing Tips, Ice Cooler Tips, And Enclosed Motorcycle Trailer Tips For A Cross-Country Trip

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My husband and I are frequent long-distance motorcyclists. He drives, I ride …and take pictures.

Some of our most memorable times together have been while we were motorcycling.

When planning our most recent cross country trip with friends (Kevin and Kay), we decided to buy a pull-behind motorcycle trailer. (They already had one.)

This was a big deal for us.

For me… because I have always prided myself at being a master at minimalist packing on all of our motorcycle trips. Yep, I actually like the challenge of trying to pack exactly the right type and number of clothes to be self-sustaining for 2 to 6 weeks on a motorcycle.

Our very first motorcycle several years ago... a Road King Classic. For years, I've been improving my minimalist packing tips for long-distance motorcycle rides.

Here’s my minimalist motorcycle packing checklist.

For hubby… because has said for years that even though lots of our friends were buying pull-behind motorcycle trailers, he just wasn’t interested.

He thought a motorcycle trailer would be:

  • Harder to park – you always have to find bigger parking spaces, ideally not on a slope, and easy to pull straight out of.
  • Difficult to back up – which means you have to pay a lot more attention to how and where you park the motorcycle.
  • Another thing to think about when you’re riding – especially when riding on curvy roads, riding on highways where cars are passing and they don’t always think to look if there’s a trailer behind the motorcycle or not.

Our Road Glide Ultra on our trip from Nashville to Alaska. This is an overnight stop in the Yukon Territory. Our Road Glide CVO Ultra Limited on another long-distance motorcycle trip with yet a different piece of motorcycle luggage.

 

Our Pull-Behind Motorcycle Trailer

At the encouragement of our friends who absolutely love their pull-behind motorcycle trailer, we all decided on a whim one afternoon to drive to Murray, Kentucky together — to see what type of trailers Hannigan Motorsports had in stock.

Like usual… we swore that were “just” gonna look. But we actually drove away with a new trailer that day!

We drove from Nashville TN to Murray KY one afternoon to look at their motorcycle trailers. We drove away with American Heritage pull-behind motorcycle trailer.

We were so unprepared for this purchase that we had to tow it home (Nashville, TN) behind our Chevy Tahoe. That was quite a sight:

We were a little unprepared when we when motorcycle trailer shopping. We had to pull it behind our SUV to get it home!

Had we known we were going to buy a pull-behind motorcycle trailer, we would have definitely ridden our motorcycle there instead.

 

Why We’re Glad We Got A Motorcycle Trailer

Now that we’ve used it a few times, hubby and I both agree that the pros far outweigh the cons when it comes to buying a motorcycle trailer.

I'm taking a picture of my friend Kay taking a picture of us riding with our pull-behind motorcycle trailer. The Grand Tetons in Wyoming are beautiful - right near Yellowstone National park. The Flaming Gorge in Utah looks amazing up close!

These are all the reasons we love our pull-behind motorcycle trailer:

  • It’s not harder to park — you just have to think ahead a little bit when scouting out parking spots.
  • It’s not all that difficult to back up — you just have to practice a little bit ahead of time until you feel comfortable with the process of backing up a trailer.
  • It’s not something you have to think about while you’re riding… at all! Truth is, you don’t even realize it’s there. The American Legend motorcycle trailer is smooth and stable at all times when you’re riding — so much so that you even forget it’s there. (By the way, I asked our friends who rode behind us a good part of the time on this trip, and they said our trailer almost always remained in the center of the lane — not crossing the centerline or the edge of the road.)
  • A look inside our American Heritage pull-behind motorcycle trailer. I was surprised how much space there is inside... yet the trailer is very lightweight!It’s now possible for us to pack some of the “extras” that we would typically leave behind — like chaps, leather jackets, full-face helmets (for rain and cold weather).
  • It’s easier to load and unload a motorcycle trailer than it is to securely strap down motorcycle luggage onto the motorcycle itself  (actually, the tour pack). And when you’re traveling for weeks — or months — at a time, that’s not a task that you look forward to every morning!
  • It’s easier to buy souvenirs, t-shirts, and motorcycle accessories while traveling — because if they don’t fit inside the trailer itself for some reason, they can always be strapped onto the luggage rack on the lid of the trailer. (Whether we travel with the motorcycle trailer or not, we always keep a cargo net with us at all times — this one, because it’s larger than most but not too big.)
  • We’ll be able to save money by camping sometimes, rather than staying at hotels all the time. Granted, we don’t have a good track record with camping. (We strapped a small tent and sleeping bags on the motorcycle with us one year, only to be bug bitten, sweaty, cramped, and suffering from lack of sleep after lying on the hard ground all night. The next morning, we went to a UPS Store and shipped all of our camping stuff back home and we enjoyed cheap hotels for the rest of the trip!) But with the extra space, we can pack sleeping mats, a bigger tent, and we’ll have the cooler for added enjoyment — and adult beverages.
  • The cooler attachment is one of our favorite things — because having access to cold drinks and a way to keep snacks from melting in hot weather is a really nice luxury! Now we start each day by filling up our heavy-duty Ziploc Big Bags with ice from the hotel each morning, adding cold drinks & filling snacks to the cooler at our first gas stop, and skipping lunch altogether. As a result, we eat fewer “full meals” than we used to, and we enjoy our dinners much more once we reach the hotel in the evening.

I took a heavy-duty Ziploc Big Bag for a way to carry ice from the hotel ice machines to our motorcycle cooler.   Kay often did the cooler filling each morning - carrying the Ziploc Big Bag filled with ice from the hotel ice machine.  Usually, this one large Ziploc Big Bag held enough ice for 2 coolers - theirs and ours.

 

The Enclosed Motorcycle Trailer We Used

Not only was this the trip that we changed our tune and bought a pull-behind motorcycle trailer…

This was also the trip that we gave in to the fact that it made more sense to use an enclosed motorcycle trailer to tote our bike & trailer (and our friends’ bike & trailer) from Nashville, Tennessee to Fort Collins, Colorado to start our trip out west — rather than ride the bikes out there and lose 4 to 5 days driving through the boring parts of Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska each way.

Our Ford F150 pulling our friends' 14-food enclosed motorcycle trailer from Nashville TN to Fort Collins CO.

Up til now, hubby had always said, “Trailers are for boats!” Together we’d roll our eyes in unison any time we saw a car or truck towing a motorcycle in or on a trailer behind it.

However, for maximum fun from our 2-week trip, we decided to shave off those boring parts of the trip by attaching our friends’ Homesteader Patriot enclosed motorcycle trailer to our Ford F-150 pickup truck — and sharing the driving.

First, we loaded the 2 pull-behind motorcycle trailers:

Both of our pull-behind motorcycle trailers are loaded. This enclosed motorcycle trailer is 7 feet wide, 7 feet tall, and 14 feet long.

Then we loaded the 2 Harley-Davidson CVO Ultra Limited motorcycles:

Our 2 Harley-Davidson CVO Ultra Limited motorcycles and 2 pull-behind trailers fit perfectly inside this 14-foot enclosed motorcycle trailer.

We took it all for a test ride before we hit the road and headed to Colorado:

Ready to hit the road with our 2 Harley motorcycles and 2 pull-behind trailers loaded inside a 14-foot enclosed motorcycle trailer!

Once in Colorado, we made arrangements with a Marriott hotel to leave our 14-foot enclosed trailer in their parking lot for almost 2 weeks. (We also stayed at that hotel one night on each end of the trip.)

Arriving back at the hotel where we had parked our truck and motorcycle trailer for almost 2 weeks.  These are the motorcycles and motorcycle trailers that fit inside the enclosed motorcycle trailer.

 

The Bottom Line…

We are thrilled to have such good friends to travel with and these amazing motorcycle trailers to get us everywhere we want to go safely.

Kevin and Kay already had their own American Legend pull-behind motorcycle trailer. (Theirs is a couple years older than ours, painted silver.)

Kevin and Kay on their Harley CVO Ultra Limited pulling an American Legend motorcycle trailer.  This photo gives a good view of our friends' CVO Ultra Limited, pull-behind-trailer, and cooler.

Kevin did a ton of customization to the enclosed motorcycle trailer — to make sure the bikes, trailers, and coolers didn’t budge during our trip!

The guys did all of the wiring for the trailer lights themselves (on the enclosed trailer and our new pull-behind trailer), and they added the cooler attachment & luggage rack to our pull-behind trailer.

The only thing I did was add the personalized license plate for the back of our pull-behind motorcycle trailer. (Kevin and Kay have always called us the Road Warriors from all the cross-country motorcycle trips we take… so we went with it and chose that for our personalized license plate.) I got it from Build A Sign.

The personalized license plate I bought for our pull-behind motorcycle trailer. The motorcycle license plate frame that I bought for our motorcycle.

Then, I made a coordinating personalized license plate frame for our actual motorcycle tag. (I put Road Warriors on the top and ALASKA on the bottom — that was one of our most memorable long-distance trips and I wanted to remember it every time I got on the bike.) I got it from Best License Plate Frames.

The bottom line is… good friends + good times = good memories!

A fun statue of a cow on the side of the road - I love how that cow looks enormous, like it's standing on its hind legs!  Enjoying Twin Falls Idaho with our friends, Kevin and Kay. Independence Pass / Continental Divide with Kevin and Kay. Selfies are part of the fun when you're motorcycling with good friends.

Lynnette
Lynnette

As a lifelong traveler, I like to help people find unique ways to do things that will save time & money — so I write about "outside the box" Travel Hacks that most wouldn't think of. I'm SUPER organized and I love to pack! I've lived in 6 different states (Florida, Indiana, New York, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas) and have visited every other state in the U.S. — except Hawaii. (Can you say bucket list?) I've been on several different cruises, airplanes, and boats in my life and I currently enjoy the outdoors by bicycling, motorcycling, Jeeping, RVing, camping, or just walking my dogs. My favorite "hobby" is riding on the back of our Harley-Davidson Road Glide traveling cross country — which we usually do at least once each year. We even rode from Tennessee to Alaska once! When I'm not on the road, you will find me at the corner of Good News & Fun Times as publisher of The Fun Times Guide (32 fun & helpful websites).

franklin.thefuntimesguide.com/the_face_behind_the_blog/
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Filed Under: Motorcycling, Travel Tagged With: Camping, Colorado Jeeping, Harley Davidson, Hotels, License Plates, Luggage, Packing Tips, Reviews, Tennessee Travel, Trucks

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LynnetteAs a lifelong traveler, I like to help people find unique ways to do things that will save time & money -- so I write about "outside the box" Travel Hacks that most wouldn't think of. I'm SUPER organized and I love to pack! I've lived in 6 different states (Florida, Indiana, New York, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas) and have visited every other state in the U.S. -- except Hawaii. (Can you say bucket list?) I've been on several different cruises, airplanes, and boats in my life and I currently enjoy the outdoors by bicycling, motorcycling, Jeeping, RVing, camping, or just walking my dogs. My favorite "hobby" is riding on the back of our Harley-Davidson Road Glide traveling cross country -- which we usually do at least once each year. We even rode from Tennessee to Alaska once! Since 2011, we've logged over 150,000 miles riding our motorcycle all across the USA. When I'm not on the road, you will find me at the corner of Good News & Fun Times as publisher of The Fun Times Guide (32 fun & helpful websites).

Lynnette: View My Blog Posts

JoshuaI’m a Florida native, a roller coaster junkie, and a frequent traveler. (Long road trips are my favorite.) Born and raised in Tampa, I grew up visiting Busch Gardens Tampa Bay. I authored the book Busch Gardens Tampa Bay: Images of Modern America, which details the colorful history of the Busch Gardens theme park. As a local historian, I've also written about other popular landmarks and attractions for a variety of publications. Here, on this Travel Guide, I like sharing little-known facts and fun stuff about all the places I've been -- so you will have a good idea of what those places are like and what you should know before you go. I especially enjoy helping others plan fun trips... on a budget!

Joshua: View My Blog Posts

AvatarUntil my son was born a few years ago, I was a diehard motorcycle enthusiast who traveled the globe. As a Marketing Specialist and Brand Ambassador for Harley-Davidson for over a decade, I lived and worked all over North America. Now, grounded as a first-time mom, I share my love for outdoor adventure with my son and extended family in the Smoky Mountains... and beyond. I hope you find my travel tips and recommendations helpful!

Candida: View My Blog Posts

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